


Today of All Days

by RaggsEnriches



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: 4 years in the future, Angst, Canon-Compliant, Drabble, M/M, Manhattan, Post-Canon, Time-Skip, east riverwalk, it's really just a lot of thoughts while walking, seaport district
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:28:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29298156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaggsEnriches/pseuds/RaggsEnriches
Summary: Sometimes he walks down the river.
Relationships: Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji
Kudos: 8





	Today of All Days

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know where this came from. I finished the anime months ago, but I've recently started consuming fan-content as well as re-watching the show just for the sake of pain(?apparently).  
> 
> 
> Mostly, I imagine, this came from a selfish need to exploit the fact that I live very close to Pier 17/the Seaport neighborhood here at college, so I’m incredibly familiar with that area, as well as most of Chinatown. It also came from my own personal musings on walks I’ve taken that are much like Eiji’s as I’ve written here - the East River walk is probably my favorite location to do even a little stretch of at a time.  
> 
> 
> It's a wonderful place to people-watch, and like the rest of this wonderful city, it has a magic all on it's own. Eiji's introspection here is a product of the sort of feeling existing in such a space brings.

Sometimes he walks down the river.  


On days when nothing else is going on, no meetings with clients, no deadlines to meet, no exhibitions to man, Eiji dresses appropriately and walks across midtown to the East River. Sometimes Sing joins him, but most of the time the expedition is done in solitude. Eiji still isn’t sure whether he likes it that way or not.  


He rarely cuts into town to visit Canal Street or Columbus Park when he’s near it. There’s still too many memories from that area, and if Sing’s with him, he knows Chinatown is off-limits. Sing only visits that particular neighborhood when he’s alone.  


The East River walk is old, some parts have fallen in, blocked off by tape and fences. People do sit on the damaged parts if they can get into them. The bike lane is, in Eiji’s opinion, a little close for comfort. Sometimes it merges with the walk lane.  


Old men fish in the water, casting nets to see if perhaps anything will float close enough to be caught. Most New Yorkers would never touch anything that came out of the East River, no matter what the city said about it being cleaner than it used to be. He remembers Max mentioning something about the dirtiness of the water back in the 80s the first time Eiji came to the city.  


Most of this river is the same. It continues to look out at Brooklyn, the only other borough Eiji is even remotely familiar with. The piers haven’t changed much: gyms, walkways, lawns, restaurants. The overpass in the financial district had been recently painted a shocking blue, but it would fade with time. Nothing was permanent.  
Perhaps it was the impermanence of this city that made people stay. That made Eiji stay.

  
  


One particularly chilly morning in early December had led the man rather far downtown, all the way to Pier 17. In the past 4 years he’d only once come to the Seaport District, despite Sing constantly trying to get him to visit one of the restaurants nestled in the cobblestone streets.  


Burrowing further into his wool coat, Eiji made his way to the railing of the pier itself, not interested in going through the large public complex that sat imposingly to his right. It was perhaps one of the more gentrified piers in the area, but it held a small place of significance in his heart.  


They’d been chased over these very railings and swum to safety in the warehouses and Max’s safehouse. It’d been the first time Eiji saw Dino in the flesh.  
Eiji turned away from staring at the rusty railings to gaze across the water. Midday sunlight danced across the small waves, bouncing back into his shaded eyes. Standing on the edge of a pier on a weekday meant there was very little to hear.  


But it was not silent. The sounds of the city behind him kept him grounded to the knowledge that he was not alone.  


No one was ever truly alone here.  


He was grateful for it, he supposed. To be able to share the sense of loneliness with everyone around him.  


A seagull flapped by, screeching as it came to land on the railing beside Eiji. The man let a little smile cross his lips at the sight.  


“What do you want?” He asked. The bird stared at him with nothing in it’s brown eyes. “Well then.”  


Not a moment later the bird was gone, squawking off across the water as if the other side would provide it with what it looked for. They’d all tried that particular action once or twice in their lives, hadn’t they?  


Going to the other side meant leaving someone else behind. Abandoning one bliss for another, hoping that every problem would sort itself out in your absence.  
Eiji let out a sigh. He was getting too introspective these days, something he knew Ash would never have approved of.  


“You always were the philosophical one in this relationship, weren’t you?” muttered Eiji. Asking the big questions was for someone with more to lose.  


It was a while before Eiji moved from the railing. He walked back towards Fulton Street, gazing at the buildings in front of him with a sense of odd serenity.  
Club Cod had become a movie theater after being closed for two years following Golzine’s death. Eiji still never wished to step foot inside the building, despite the intense renovations that had taken place on every part of it.  


When he crossed the street, he went to the left to avoid walking near the theater and came to the doors of the local bookstore. This, like a majority of the businesses in the area, had been there since Eiji had first come to the city.  


He took a deep breath and pulled the door open.  


Books were sacred objects. While Eiji hadn’t been to a library in years, he occasionally found himself in a bookstore, staring at the covers and trying to figure out if any of this was worth it. Trying to figure out if maybe he actually liked reading anymore.  


He climbed the stairs and found himself in the fiction section. Out of nowhere, his phone suddenly started to vibrate in his pocket. Sing’s name was on the screen.  


Shit.  


“Eiji?” Sing sounded absolutely frantic.  


“Good morning, Sing.” He said, calmly and quietly.  


“Where are you? You couldn’t have told me you were leaving the house this morning?”  


“I’m in the Seaport District, I took a morning walk.”  


“Oh, so you’re just disappearing on really long walks now?” asked Sing, accusingly.  


“Sing, I didn’t want to wake you up. I can handle myself.” Eiji replied, looking up at the Stephen King section with a critical eye. Just how many books could a man write?  


“Eiji,” Sing sighed audibly into the phone. “You know as well as I do that I have a reason to be worried when you vanish.”  


“I wanted some fresh air.”  


“I’ll come down and we can go back together.” offered Sing, but Eiji knew he wasn’t really giving a choice on the matter.  


“I’ll take the subway back from City Hall.” Eiji tried to compromise.  


“Eiji,” said Sing.  


“I promise I won’t be much longer.”  


“Alright. But make sure you come right back.”  


“I will.” He said, and hung up.  


Eiji knew Sing had every right to be as concerned as he was, but that didn’t make the situation any easier to swallow. He elected to think about that later. Right now, he was staring at the classics section, wondering if he should try out a Dickens book.  


When he left the bookstore with a copy of A Tale of Two Cities held tightly against his body, Eiji refused to let the thought as to exactly why the book had stuck out to him this morning cross his mind. 

  
  


Fulton St. was noisy and clogged with people. He stared at the ground as he went, only occasionally glancing up to see the Trade Center tower in the distance against the clear blue sky. Someone shouted for money on one corner. Another person was rooting through the trash on the next. A woman talked loudly on her phone near Joe’s Pizza. A delivery man almost ran Eiji down with his bike.  


He hadn’t intended to come this far up the street, but his mind was buzzing. City Hall station was in the other direction. With a glance for cars, he crossed and headed along Park Row.  


All morning Eiji’s mind had been hard at work trying to figure out how to get rid of the gaping loneliness that stubbornly sat in his chest. It’s constant presence in his life meant that this happened only on days when there was time to think about it. Unfortunately, this was one of those days.  


He walked into the gates of City Hall Park without thinking, just another person passing through the quaint public space, not really stopping to look at the fountain or the plaques that adorned the ground. His mind floated further away each passing minute.  


Oh, but how Eiji wished he weren’t alone at this moment. 

  
  


Sing greeted him with open arms when he finally walked through the doors of his brownstone. He took note of the worry that twisted the younger man’s face as they parted.  


“Eiji, why do you do this to me?” asked Sing. Eiji smiled weakly.  


“I already told you,” He hung his coat up on the rack, “You were asleep.”  


“I made lunch.” Sing gave up on pursuing the conversation, leading him into the kitchen.  


Eiji smiled a little brighter at the sight of leftovers on the top of the island despite the aching that slumbered on in his heart. He would eat lunch because of the look on Sing’s face that told him the other boy knew breakfast had been forsaken that morning. He might spend the rest of his day lying uselessly on the couch, but at least Eiji could please just one person today.  


There wasn’t much more anyone could ask of him on a day like this.

**Author's Note:**

> The walk Eiji takes in this incredibly short drabble/one-shot is *really* long. The East River Walk extends all the way from the very tip of Battery Park (the area I’m most familiar with and spend most of my time around) all the way up to 125th street. I imagine Eiji lives on Christopher St., or at least in the Lower East Village and the walk from that area across and down to Pier 17 would probably take about an hour, give or take.This being said, I don’t think Eiji would take this walk very often.  
> 
> 
> I spend way too much time down at Pier 17 and in the general Seaport district, and when I first watched the show I nearly had a conniption when I realized exactly where they went over the railing during the pier fight. I will say that the area doesn’t look exactly as the show displays it (and we only see it for about 3 minutes if even that much), but I did my best to adjust the visuals so that there wasn’t a giant building and several boats docked nearby. I imagine the manga would have been more accurate to the location, but given that I’ve never read it, I don’t even know if this scene happens at any point.  
> 
> 
> This was more of a drabble than anything with a plot, but I hope it was enjoyable despite the angst. Thanks for reading!


End file.
